News feminist philosophers can use

Two philosophy meetings, no women.

Beginnings can be delicate times. This is the first The Physics & Philosophy Society conference. The organizers describe the program this way:

The day has been divided into talks and discussions on the subject of space and time, the strange world of quantum mechanics, and the relationship between metaphysics and the physical sciences. Spanning the worlds of physics, philosophy, and philosophical theology, this promises to be a very stimulating interdisciplinary conference.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were also some gender diversity among the speakers?

Here we have an all-male program committee, and a line up of speakers and panelists, all of whom, yep, are guys.

Information about the Gendered Conference Campaign

If you are new to the Gendered Conference Campaign please take a look at this post that describes why we bring gendered conferences to your attention. Especially important is the part about us focusing on the harmful effects of gendered conferences, rather than the intentions of the conference organizers.

Also, here is a link to FAQ‘s about the Gendered Conference Campaign. It would be great if you took a look at them so that we don’t have to cover old ground in the comments.

I don’t think it’s useful (and it’s unfair what you are implying about the organizers) to point out conferences that might only have male speakers. For example, how do you know female speakers weren’t petitioned? I organized a conference 3 years ago. We needed 2 keynotes. We made a list of 6 keynotes we were hoping to get–we intentionally chose 3 male and 3 female. Not one of the female keynotes could make it. Further, we issued a call for papers and we had roughly 50 submission for 6 spots. Of all the submissions, only 2 were from female philosophers. Our blind reviewers chose 1. Last, we needed respondents from surrounding universities. I emailed 2 well known female philosophers that were fairly close and only 1 responded (with a kind “thank you, but no”).

Now, anyone looking at our conference list would have seen that out of 14 participants, only 1 was female. While I agree that the female representation was lacking, it wasn’t because of a lack trying.

All that to say, I take it that the issue is more complex than you seem to be making it. Singling out conferences out that seem to lack gender diversity is unfair and simply wrong.